Editors’ Note:

Thank you for joining us, dear readers. It is our pleasure to welcome you to the latest (and possibly last) issue of The Journal of Unlikely Entomology.

Our entomology issues have tended to appear in November, as of late. The dead month, the month of loss. This issue encapsulates the season, as all our stories happen to deal with loss in one form or another, particularly loss of family. Family is an expansive thing. For different people, it means different things — blood, marriage, choice. This issue of Unlikely Story explores all those permutations: the family you’re born into, the family you chose, and what it means to lose them.

In this issue you’ll find husbands coping with the loss of their wives, and a daughter coping with the loss of her mother. You’ll also find a woman learning to deal with a threat to her adopted alien family, and a son dealing with the alienating choices made by his mother. You’ll encounter a ship’s pilot, carrying on a family legacy, and a lonely man creating his own disturbing version of a family by imprisoning an innocent being.

At the heart of all these stories, you’ll find bugs. They are our staple, after all. Whether they creep or flutter, skitter, or crawl, they are close to our hearts. It’s not the number of legs or eyes that count when it comes to families, after all.